Published

77.

It’s been a week now since the bomb in downtown Oslo and the massacre at Utøya. You’ve probably heard and seen everything you need and then some on the radio, on TV and on the internet. I won’t add much to it. The name of the man who did this should soon be forgotten, his actions should not.

But there is one thing I think we should consider. We Norwegians have been excellent at padding ourselves on our backs for not calling for revenge, increased security and control, but rather a more open, a more united society. Prime minister Jens Stoltenberg talked about “even more democracy”, whatever that means. But what if all this had not been the work of a single madman? What if he was part of an organization whose members are hard to identify, but easily associated with people you see every day? What if it had been a member of al-Qaeda who parked a Volkswagen Crafter in the government quarter and dressed up like a police officer to gain the trust of the people at Utøya? What would then have been the Norwegian reaction?

And with that question lingering we will now return to our normal programming of occasional incoherent rambling.